The Grass is Singing
The Grass is Singing 2021 Hand woven archival ink-jet prints 201 × 168 × 6 cm
This work incorporates the entire text from Doris Lessing’s The Grass is Singing.
The Grass is Singing (detail 1)
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The Grass is Singing (detail 2)
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The Grass is Singing (detail 3)
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This Was The Old Chiefs Country
This Was The Old Chief’s Country 2020 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 54 x 41.5 cm
The text from Old Chief Mshlanga by Doris Lessing on a map of the district of Banket, in the Lomagundi area of Zimbabwe.
This work has the entire text from the short story The Old Chief Mshlanga by Doris Lessing from her collection of short stories This Was the Old Chief’s Country (1952). This text is laid over a map showing an area of Zimbabwe where I believe the farm she talks about in the story is located.
This Was The Old Chiefs Country (detail)
The Social Contract
The Social Contract 2021 Screen print on BFK rives paper 57 x 76 cm (Print by Black River Studios)
The idea of how we lived before civilization is contested between philosophers Thomas Hobbes and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Hobbes believed we behaved like savages and the civilizing influence of government saved us from a wretched existence. Rousseau on the other hand thought that we used to live much more harmoniously in an equal society at a time before land ownership. These ideas can be found in his book The Social Contract (1762).
The text making up the NO TRESPASSING sign reads:
The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellowmen, ‘Do not listen to this imposter. You are lost if you forget that the fruits of the earth belong to all and the earth to no one!’
Colonial Hangover
Colonial Hangover 2020 Found plastic-weave bags 196 x 164 cm
100 Trillion Dollar Social Contract
100 Trillion Dollar Social Contract 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 165.4 x 89.9 cm
Z$100 Trillion made out of the entire text from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract.
100 Trillion Social Contract (detail)
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Machiavelli
Machiavelli 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 159.1 x 71.3 cm
100 000 Lira made out of the entire text from Machiavelli’s The Prince.
Machiavelli (detail)
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£50 Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart (£50) 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 173.5 × 103.5
£50 made out of the entire text from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
£50 Things Fall Apart (detail)
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R100 Things Fall Apart
R100 Things Fall Apart 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 189.5 x 89.9 cm
R100 made out of the entire text from Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
R100 Things Fall Apart (detail)
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Heart of Darkness Dollar
Heart of Darkness 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 176 x 76 cm
US$1 made out of the entire text from Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Heart of Darkness Dollar (detail)
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Z$100 Billion Animal Farm
Animal Farm Agro-Cheque 2021 Hand-woven archival ink-jet prints 141.5 x 76 cm
Z$100 Billion Agro Cheque made out of the entire text from George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
As the economic crisis in Zimbabwe began to escalate in the early 2000s the government clamped down on the freedom of press leading to the bombing of The Daily Mail in 2001. As a response the paper published Animal Farm in daily instalments. (see: https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/mail-guardian/20170203/281861528235847)
With the resulting hyperinflation the government kept printing ever-larger denominations of banknotes. In 2008 they released large denomination Special Agro (Agricultural) Cheques for farmers. With the exponential rise in food prices, these Agro Cheques made their way into general circulation. The Z$100 Billion Agro Cheque was the largest note in the second series of the Zimbabwean Dollar. It shared the record for the most number of zeroes depicted on a banknote with the Yugoslav 500 Billion Dinar note of 1993, up until 2009 when Zimbabwe issued even larger denominations.
Z$100 Billion Animal Farm (detail)
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